Automated Irrigation System with Moisture Sensors power by Solar System

Automated Irrigation System with Moisture Sensors power by Solar System and battery backup

Proper watering to crop is necessary to get the best yield from the crop, if the quantity of water being provided to a certain crop is not appropriate then either the crop will be destroyed facing shortage of water or plants will be in stress due to over watering. Therefore an efficient water controller is required which determines the need of crop and supply the water only if it is required. This object can be achieved through the designing of a proper water control system for crops. Here in this project we will learn how we can develop a prototype water controller for our crop to meet the proper requirements of crop about its watering. The features of the Automated Irrigation System with Moisture Sensors power by Solar System are as under:

1. Use of Moisture sensors at the roots of plants to acquire the level of moisture contents in soil.
2. Process the useful information gathered from moisture sensors in microcontrollers and develop appropriate plan for watering of crop.
3. Delivers a control amount of water to crop.
4. Incorporates proper water management practices.
5. Powered by solar system to reduce the cost of electricity.

Introduction of Automated Irrigation System

The Control of artificially supplying water to land or soil is known as Irrigation. The Irrigation is used to help the agricultural crops to grow properly and re-vegetation and redevelopment of damaged soils in dry areas including maintenance of landscapes especially during periods of insufficient rainfall. As we know that the Water is a basic resource needed by all living things including human and plants. Therefore it is very valuable and needs to be used with care to preserve for future generations. The Agriculture industry requires continuous consumption of water at relatively high rate. Therefore there is need to save the water in this field by using appropriate measures like Automated Irrigation System. The Mechatronics is now being introduced in agriculture field to cope up the needs through automation. Automatic irrigation system will control the supply of water to plants at the pant need basic timeframe. This will help the growth of crops, landscapes, and re-vegetation of troubled soils.

Development of Automated Irrigation System:

The system will be developed using sensors, microcontrollers, valves, pipes and other electronics components to achieve the goal, it is discussed in bock diagram below:

Block Diagram of Automated Irrigation System with Moisture Sensors power by Solar System

Components required for the fabrication of Automated Irrigation System:

The following are the main components proposed to use the automatic irrigation system. The components are discussed below one by one.

The Sensing Module (Moisture Sensor):

The sensing unit will be consisting of moisture sensor which will measure the moisture content of the soil continuously. Here will implanted four sensor station each sensor is composed of two sensors, a microcontroller and wireless communication module for communication with aster microcontroller. The important jobs being performed at each sensor box are as under:

1. It collects the moisture raw data from each of the two sensors.
2. Convert the measured values to useful / understandable format like in range from zero to hundred percent. And calculate the average value from the measurement results received from two sensors.
3. It transmits the averaged data wireless to the Master microcontroller using radio frequency transmitter.

The Wireless radio frequency Communication Module

It is proposed that for implantation of wireless data transmission the developer can use Nrf-24L01 wireless modules. The wireless module suggested here operate at radio frequency. The communication devices consume low power, transmission speed is high. The distance it covers good for these application like its range is about 100m.

 The central control and processing station based upon Micro-Controller

It is based on a microcontroller which will act as a master controller which will decide the all important decisions bases on the information received from slave microcontrollers wirelessly. The important implementations being carried out at the master control stations are as under:

1.     Obtain or gather results from all slave microcontrollers.

2.     Process the incoming data

3.     Compare the soil moisture or humidity values with a set of ranges

4.     Display the results on local LCD.

5.   Provides provision to adjust the control ranges for moisture contents in soil.

6.     Control of Solenoid valves when required to give water to crops.

7.     Determine when exactly the soil of each crop needs water.

Solar Power Supply of the whole system:

The automatic irrigation system will consume some power for its operation; therefore proper arrangement of power supply is required. In this project proposal we suggest to use a solar plat of 12 to 18V with nominal ampere like 10Amps and a suitable battery backup. As the system is run whole day 24/7 therefore battery arrangements is also needed.